The September 2017 Monthly Report contains an article on monetary policy indicators at the zero lower bound on the basis of term structure models, and an analysis of the performance of German credit institutions in 2016. Explanations are also provided on the potential and risks of distributed ledger technologies in payments and securities settlement and on the changes and results in the process of extending the investment fund statistics.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has called on the euro-area countries to embrace fiscal prudence, arguing in a speech in Hamburg that the tighter the fiscal space, the more central banks will come under political pressure to stabilise economic activity in the short run – even if that does mean compromising on price stability.